Correlations for computation and computation for correlations

Abstract

Abstract Quantum correlations are central to the foundations of quantum physics and form the basis of quantum technologies. Here, our goal is to connect quantum correlations and computation: using quantum correlations as a resource for computation—and vice versa, using computation to test quantum correlations. We derive Bell-type inequalities that test the capacity of quantum states for computing Boolean functions within a specific model of computation and experimentally investigate them using 4-photon Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) states. Furthermore, we show how the resource states can be used to specifically compute Boolean functions—which can be used to test and verify the non-classicality of the underlying quantum states. The connection between quantum correlation and computability shown here has applications in quantum technologies, and is important for networked computing being performed by measurements on distributed multipartite quantum states.